On the Out
by fringeperson
Summary: oneshot. complete. do not own. If a lot of things didn't happen, then what might have?


Naruto Uzumaki was coming up on fourteen years old, and he'd "failed" the genin exam to exit the academy five times now. He'd figured out, four years ago, that the teachers were _all_ actively sabotaging his learning, so he'd gotten in the habit of ignoring them and paying attention to what his classmates were being taught instead – subtly of course. It wouldn't be very kind to the younger students to have _their_ educations sabotaged as well, just because he was caught watching _their_ lessons, and rather than practising in the school yard at break like all the other kids, Naruto read the assigned scrolls that had been handed out or put on the shelves – for them, rather than him.

By now, Naruto _could_ pass the exam, had been able to for three years in fact, but he'd been slammed down and denied the Konoha headband that would cause people to recognise him as a shinobi. He'd even been using his skills to buy his groceries and new clothes, since the shopkeepers blatantly hated him, only letting him buy bad food and overcharging him for it, as well as the clothes he bought at well above the regular price and the poor quality weapons he was paying double the standard price for _good_ quality for.

Really, all that extra time in the Academy had taught him _something_ by now. Did they not get how skilled he was just to be able to evade the jounin that chased him through Konoha every time he pulled a prank? It was the whole reason he was still doing them really, to get some _serious_ practice at running away, dodging projectiles and concealment. The pranks were harmless really, and since the time he'd been forced to clean paint off the Hokage Monument, he'd been very careful to make sure he never left a mess behind again. Cleaning paint off was a nuisance.

His most recent prank was practically a public service by comparison, and _still_ it had angry people chasing him through the village. He'd noticed a shinobi peeping through a hole in a fence, grinning, then sighing and wandering off. Naruto, curious, had taken a peek himself, lunging backwards in surprise and glaring at the back of the neck of the shinobi who'd been there before him. Naruto had gone home, made a sign on some cardboard, and returned to the whole in the fence. Without looking through it again, he'd slung the sign over the side and then kept moving. Screams had erupted immediately and there was a lot of splashing.

For reasons beyond his comprehension, the kunoichi had taken it badly that he'd pointed out what the older shinobi were up to. He'd only peeped into the bathhouse that one time and then told them about the hole in the fence. Why on _earth_ had they chased _him_? Didn't matter. He'd gotten a good run out of it anyway and they hadn't caught him.

"Naruto."

The blonde looked up at the man who, essentially, was the only person who was willing to spend any time at all with him. Sarutobi, the Third Hokage.

"Hokage-sama," Naruto greeted, standing and bowing. He'd learned manners too through the years. Took a while, but he'd actually found a book on etiquette and read it. Most boring thing he'd ever read, but very informative.

"I hear you failed the genin exam again," the Hokage said with a frown.

Naruto sighed. "They don't _want_ me to pass, Hokage-sama, so they don't let me. That's all," he answered.

"But _five times_ Naruto?"

Naruto shrugged. "I can pass it, I _have_ passed it, but they marked me down so it doesn't matter that I know."

Sarutobi sighed. He'd been getting reports from the teachers at the Academy of course. They said that Naruto didn't pay attention to anything they told him, barely practised in the school yard like the other students, and of course there were the disruptive pranks that he was always pulling. It was very hard to counter such things with the boy saying that they didn't _want_ him to pass, and that he could, and they marked him down.

"I'm afraid, Naruto, that you being in the Academy another year isn't an option, and your pranks are disruptive to the peace of Konoha."

"Tell the kunoichi someone drilled a hole in the fence of their bathhouse and the shinobi are peeping and they go on a rampage at the innocent who told them," Naruto grumbled.

"Perhaps you would be happier if you left Konoha," Sarutobi said, as gently as he could, but it wasn't a suggestion.

Naruto looked the old man in the eye shrewdly. "How long am I going to be allowed to pack up my things and get on the road?" he asked, the smile that he usually wore for the Hokage long gone, a frown on his face.

"Until noon tomorrow," the Hokage answered. "I'm sorry Naruto."

Naruto just nodded. "Yeah," he agreed. "Because Jiraya-sama is gonna be pissed to hell when he comes back, right? Or was it his idea, so that Danzo couldn't ever get hold of me?"

Sarutobi frowned. His old student had stopped by when Naruto was twelve, and Naruto had somehow gotten the man drunk – and answering questions freely. The boy knew he was not only the son of the Fourth Hokage, but the containment vessel of the nine-tailed fox demon.

"It was Jiraya's idea," Sarutobi answered.

Naruto nodded solemnly. "Well then Hokage-sama, I've got some shopping and some packing to do so that I can leave tomorrow, so if you'll excuse me?"

Sarutobi nodded and waved the boy off. He had never wanted to do this, but it was how things had come to pass.

~oOo~

A nondescript fourteen-year-old boy with dark brown hair and muddy brown eyes walked into the grocery store, dressed in a plain, olive-drab t-shirt and blue pants. He grabbed a basket, pulled a list out of his pocket, and walked down the aisles of the store, stopping every now and then to pull things off the shelves.

"What's all this Kyo-kun?" asked the shopkeeper when the boy set the basket down on the checkout. "You don't normally buy this much pre-packaged food."

The boy, Kyo, just smiled weakly. "There's fruit in there too! No, I know, but Grandfather is determined that I'm going to go out into the world and make something of myself," he answered. "I'm going to be camping out for a while, figuring out just _what_ I'm going to do."

"You're leaving Konoha?" the shopkeeper asked, surprised.

"Yep," Kyo answered, still smiling faintly. "Grandfather is decided. I might be back in a few years, but if I settle down somewhere else then probably not."

"I understand Kyo-kun. Have you got a tent? Are you hiring a genin team to escort you to the next town?"

"Aah," Kyo answered, shaking his head. "No, I'm not hiring a genin team, I can't afford it with the other things I've got to buy. I do have the tent and bags to carry though. I've already packed all of my clothes into them."

The shopkeeper nodded his understanding and rung up the total price, then took some off. "Since you're not coming back, I'll make it cheaper as a farewell present, alright?"

"Aah, thank you!"

Kyo paid, took his bags of groceries, and left the shop. A few blocks over and he dropped the henge, leaving Naruto standing there, holding the food supplies that would last him for the next few months. A careful teleportation technique and he was in his apartment, where the contents of the shopping bags were moved into sealing scrolls and put in one of the pockets of Naruto's backpack.

"Only thing left is to buy some new weapons and then I'm ready to go," Naruto said to himself with a smile. Of course, no one would sell quality weapons to _him_, not even with his Kyo disguise, since 'Kyo' was a civilian, not a ninja, and therefore not actually allowed to buy weapons at all.

However, there were plenty of ninja in the village that Naruto could pretend to be for his weapons shopping. He'd been nearly all of them over the years actually, depending on who was on a mission and who wouldn't notice if he used their face to do a little shopping. More interestingly, however, was that sometimes the ANBU did their shopping in full uniform – mask included. Today, Naruto would be doing his shopping as one of the elite. No one ever asked questions about them buying ridiculously large amounts of anything, and they very nearly always got a discount.

Naruto chose an ANBU he'd last seen personally some ten years ago. No one ever asked what happened to an ANBU, and masks got reassigned after a certain period of time – fifteen years of no use, to be specific – so it was highly unlikely that anyone would be suspicious of him wearing the Weasel mask unless they'd been its previous wearer or on a team with them. But in that case, they may simply dismiss it as wondering where those years had gone.

If it wasn't such a bad thing, and so useful to him, then Naruto would have gone to the Hokage years ago about how easy it was to go unnoticed through Konoha under a henge. Maybe he'd tell the old man before he left tomorrow... Nah. They were kicking him out. He'd keep that ace up his sleeve for if he ever felt like coming back.

~oOo~

Naruto was only mildly surprised that the Hokage wasn't the only one at the gate come noon the next day. The Hokage was the only one actually wishing him goodbye though, all the others – the Hokage's council – were there to declare good-riddance and make sure he actually _was_ leaving, not just ducking out of the gate and then back in again.

"Anything to say, Demon?" questioned one of the old council people.

Naruto stopped short of the gate. "Now that you mention it, yeah," he said, turning around to face them all. "If I actually _were_ a demon, you wouldn't have lived two days after the _first_ time I was beaten up in the streets of this village, the assassins you sent after me would be bloody rags instead of just cradling their stomachs where I kicked them off me, and the civilian sector would have been long ago burned to the ground for selling me bad products for escalated prices. However, since I am _not_ a demon," he added, grinning at them now, "then I'm just going to wish you all good luck with your pointless political struggles. Ta-ra!"

So saying, Naruto bounded out of the gate and into the forest beyond.

"Tell me I didn't hear the boy right," Sarutobi said, turning to the council. "I may be a very busy man, but I had hoped I'd made enough time in my schedule to make sure he wasn't being treated so poorly!"

"Sorry Hokage-sama, you got blind-sided!" Naruto's voice echoed back from the tree-line, but the boy was gone.

~The End~


End file.
